How old does an aspiring tennis champion need to be to win a men’s grand slam tournament? The answer is, according to most tennis experts, much older than those who have gone before.

Tennis Australia chief executive
Steve Wood
says the era of teenagers dominating a grand slam event is all but over and the average age of a top-100 male tennis player is now a touch more than 26.

“The days of Boris Becker winning Wimbledon at 17 are gone," says Wood.

“It’s just a different game."

Indeed, Australia’s
Bernard Tomic
was the only male teenager in this year’s Australian Open to progress past the second round.

If the chief of Australian tennis’s governing body is correct, it is unlikely fans will see a performance reminiscent of Michael Chang’s remarkable victory, aged just 17, at the French Open in 1989.

Nor are they likely to see a final similar to the 1985 Australian Open title match – then held on grass courts at Melbourne’s Kooyong ­Stadium – when 19-year-old Stefan Edberg defeated 21-year-old Mats Wilander.

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“Would a 17 or 18-year-old be more well-rounded than a 25-year-old," asks Hecimovich? “Probably not."

“You’ll see that today’s athletes look more physical, they look fitter and more muscular."

Technology-led equipment changes have also played a part in determining who dominates the rankings, even if the move from wood to steel to ­aluminium to graphite (and other materials such as titanium) is sometimes promoted as helping a weaker player compete against someone much stronger.

Network Seven commentators and former top players Jim Courier and John Fitzgerald marvelled last week at the pace that Juan Martin del Potro could generate on his forehand.

They suspected the Argentinian’s forehand would buckle a wooden ­racquet.

Technological advances mean current equipment can handle the power of a fully developed tennis player who is more likely to be in his 20s than in his teens.

Sydney lawyer and Tennis Australia president Stephen Healy says expectations need to be tempered to take into account the changed nature of the sport.

“The days of kids coming out of junior tennis and jumping into the top 100 at age 19 are pretty much gone," says Healy. “People are going to have to be patient and give these kids some time to develop."

For the tennis-loving public longing for a return to Australia’s golden age, it is a wearisome wait.

Australia’s brightest male prospect, Tomic, is just 18 and still has another inch to grow.

The trend puts pressure on the country’s up-and-comers, who would historically know by their late teens or early 20s if they had a shot at the big time.

“Top juniors now have five to seven years of hard work ahead of them to break into the top 100," Healy says. “There is no quick fix."

The trend is evident in the women’s game as well and the age of top-100 female players averages at more than 24 years.

Could a 12-year-old still win a junior grand slam tournament, where participants can be as old as 18, as Martina Hingis did in 1993?

Physiques, aggression and professionalism have also progressed significantly in the women’s game during the past three decades. Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles and the Williams sisters are among the players most credited for leading the change.

Hecimovich says the impact of role models on a sport should not be underestimated, as future generations copy the stars’ techniques and physical training regimes. He says in another individual sport, golf, there is now an assumption that you need big biceps to hit the ball a long way. Tiger Woods brought that idea

“All it took was one very famous player to change people’s perception of what you needed to play good golf," he says. “Tennis could also drift in a different direction."